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586 NA TURE

586

headed race, with small features, whilst those from the roimd barrow were a tall, short- or round-headed race, There was with larger and more prominent faces. nothing new

statement that the skulls of the ancient Britons of the later or Bronze age were usually of rounded form the chief novelty was the fact deduced by Dr. Thuruam from his e.plorations in the primeval long barrows, that the skulls from that form of tumulus are of extreme length, such as now prevails only in far in this



distant lands, as for

example

in

India, Africa,

and

yus-

tralia.

Dr. Thurnam's general conclusions as to the skullforms from the barrows, were concisely expressed b' him " long barrows, long skulls round in the formula barrows, round skulls." This coincidence between the form of the barrow and the shape of the skulls which it contained, appeared to be so strange to some minds that they hesitated to give full weight to the statistics brought The unfavourable reception forward in support of it. which Dr. Thurnam's conclusions met with in certain quarters, however disagreeable to him at the time, can now only be a subject of congratulation, as it no doubt served as a spur to further investigation, the results of In the paper published which are tnost conclusive. in the Anthropological Memoirs of 1870, Dr. Thurnam was enabled to discuss the character of as many as sixtyseven skulls from the two classes of long barrows, no fewer than twenty-se-en of them being from simple barrows, although the first described skull from that class of tumulus The results of the was obtained so recently as 1S63.

—



measurements of these sixty-seven skulls, as contrasted with those deri-ed from seventy skulls from the round barrows, may readily be made ex'ident to those of our readers who are least acquainted with the technicalities of craniology. Skulls are now usually classed according to the form of the brain case, as " long," " short," and " intermediate," the limits of each class being accurately defined. Of these sixty-seven skulls from long barrows, then, it is found that eighty-two per cent, are technically long, and eighteen per cent, intermediate not one technically short or round. On the other hand, of the seventy round barrow skulls, eighty-three per cent, are short, and seventeen per cent, intermediate not one long. Bearing in mind that the archseological evidence has satisfactorily established the superior antiquity of the long as compared with the round barrows, the conclusions here arrived at, based as they are upon a wide induction of instances derived from one district and one class of monuments, are a clear gain to science, and are not for one moment to be compared with such hypotheses as that of a primitive short-headed population, founded by Retzius upon the examination of isolated crania from various parts of Europe. The question of the relation of the men of the long barrows to the existing people is one of great difficulty. It might seem natural to infer that the skulls recognised by some excellent observers, such as Dr. Beddoe, as Keltic skulls, are the modern representatives of the They seem to us, however, to ancient long heads. differ in many essential particulars, especially in the important element of height. Dr. Thurnam appears to have been impressed with certain historical evidence favourable to the notion of the Iberian origin of the long barrow people, and he has accordingly carefully studied the large series of Basque skulls in the museum of the Anthropological Society of Paris. The results of the comparison between the two classes of skulls do not, however, seem to go far towards supporting the Iberian theory. are inclined to think that Dr. Thurnam should have turned to the north rather than to the south of Europe for the representatives of the primitive longheaded population of Britain. He readily allows that certain skulls obtained from ancient cemeteries (graverows) in northern Germany closely resemble those of the long barrow folk, but he seems to have been deterred



We

{April

T,

1870

from following up the clue by the fact that these graverow skulls are of the iron period, and probably of post-

Roman date. Since the date of Dr. Thurnam's paper, however, skulls of the same long and high form have been found in Rheinhessen, in graves assigned by the eminent archaeologist Lindenschmidt to a date 500 years before Christ. Similar skulls have also been discovered in Bohemia with weapons of stone and bronze. We have devoted so much space to the archasological and craniological portion of Dr. Thurnam's paper, that we are unable to notice in detail the admirable way in which the physical facts observed are reviewed in the light of historical evidence. It must suffice to say that the men of the long barrows are identified with those " described by Ca;sar under the name of Intcriorcs Bri/dini!, as forming the aboriginal population," whilst those of the round barrows are inferred to be the Belga?, who, according to Ca;sar's account, passed over to Britain from the Continent, in immediately pre-Roman times, for the purpose of plunder and making war.

NOTES We

are glad to be able to state that energetic steps are

now

view the We believe that Mr. La.ssell, approaching Eclipse of the Sun. the President of the Royal Astronomical Society, will cull attention to the subject at the meeting of the society to-morrow being

taken

the matter

in

of the

Expedition

to

evening.

Mr. Lockyer,

on the Sun, delivered at showed an interesting experiment with a candle, which gives a good general idea of As the solar phenomena as observed by his new method. round the sun Mr. Lockyer can spectroscopically detect an ordinarily invisible hydrogen envelope which is rendered evident in his third lecture

the Royal Institution on Saturday last,

by bright lines only as contrasted with the nearly continuous spectrum given by the white light of the surface of the sun, so also there is an ordinarily unnoticed envelope (of sodium -apour) round a common candle flame which gives a bright line spectrum as contrasted with the continuous spectrum of the Mr. Lockyer also showed that some of the flame itself phenomena he has seen when watching a solar storm may be reproduced by disturbing a candle flame.

We have heard

so

much

recently of the long-delayed determi-

nation of Cambridge University to apply

itself in

earnest to the

cultivation of Natural Science, that the information contained in

the following paragraph must be a blow to those of

its

friends

—

was entering on a new course " The Syndicate appointed to consider the means of raising the necessary funds for establishing a Professor and Demonstrator of Experimental Physics, and for providing buildings and apparatus required for Jthat department of science, and other wants of the

who hoped

to see that

University, have

it

made



a report to the Senate, in 'hich they

have addressed a communication to the several colleges of the University, to inquire whether they would be willing, under proper safeguards for the due appropriation of any state that they

moneys which might be entrusted

to

the University, to

make

contributions from their corporate funds for the above-mentioned objects.

The answers

of the several colleges, except that of

which has not yet been received, have been fully They indicated such a want considered by the Syndicate. of concurrence in any proposal to raise contributions from of direct the corporate funds of colleges, by any kind taxation, that the Syndicate felt obliged to abandon the notion of obtaining the necessary funds from this source, and accordingly to limit the number of objects which they should King's,

recommend attention,

the

Senate to accomplish.

therefore,

to

the

means of

They raising

confined their sufficient

funds